Strip
nounA long, narrow piece or band of something.
How to spell strip
5 letters · 1 syllable
How to pronounce strip
What does strip mean?
- nounA long, narrow piece or band of something.
- verbTo remove a covering, layer, or contents from something.
Strip in a sentence
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noun
She cut the fabric into a thin strip for the hem.
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verb
Workers had to strip the old paint from the door before sanding it.
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noun
A narrow strip of land separated the two farms.
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verb
You should strip the bed before washing the sheets.
Where does strip come from?
Language of origin: Germanic
The word comes from Middle English 'strippen', meaning to plunder or to take off a covering, which traces back to a Germanic root preserved in Old English and related to the Old High German 'streifen', meaning to glide, slip, or skin off. The original sense was very physical: to peel away an outer layer, to skin an animal, or to rob someone of their clothes and goods. From that verb of removal, English later developed the noun for a long narrow piece, probably reinforced by the related Low German and Dutch 'strippe', meaning a strap or band. By the 1400s both ideas were active, and over time the noun came to cover everything from a strip of land to a strip of bacon. Because the word stayed short and kept its single 'p', the common spelling trap is doubling that 'p' only when a suffix is added (stripped, stripping), while the bare form keeps just one.
How the word is built
- strip (a single Germanic root meaning a long narrow band; no prefix or suffix)
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